CHANGING LANES: A cheerleader no more

In the Spring of 1988, I was an eighth-grader in Georgia. Having grown up as a southern belle in training, I participated in a rite of passage that all but a handful of the girls in my grade eagerly signed up for: cheerleading tryouts.My circle of friends and I spent hours practicing gymnastics and jumps with na...

In the Spring of 1988, I was an eighth-grader in Georgia. Having grown up as a southern belle in training, I participated in a rite of passage that all but a handful of the girls in my grade eagerly signed up for: cheerleading tryouts.

My circle of friends and I spent hours practicing gymnastics and jumps with names like “herkie”. To this day my parents tease me about practicing my Russian jumps indoors and making the floors shake.

I was ecstatic to learn that I was one of the lucky five to make the JV squad. That summer we attended cheerleading camp at Georgia Tech. It was about 100 degrees with no air conditioning but none of us ever complained because we all very much wanted to be there.

Because my grandfather was headmaster of my school and I was afraid of being labeled a “priss”, it was a great relief to begin my freshman year as a cheerleader because it meant I got rides home from cool older guys, even if my parents wouldn’t let me date them yet. More than once, I heard us referred to as “fresh meat” (as opposed to freshmen) but my friends and I just rolled our eyes and giggled at how gross guys were.

I loved Fridays when we all wore our uniforms to school because of the pep rallies on game day. That is, I loved Fridays until something happened that made me hate Fridays and want to skip school for the rest of the season.

The way my school was laid out, the gym was a bit of a hike from the main campus. One Friday I stayed at school for a late meeting and had to walk to the gym in the dusk.

I remember a prickly feeling on the back of my neck as I heard male voices laughing and footsteps growing closer. Then all of the sudden, there were hands on me, and I startled. I am sure I looked terrified to the three older guys who circled me in a blur of letter jackets.

I recognized the ringleader whose reddened face was framed by blonde hair. He was the boyfriend of the captain of the cheerleaders, who many people said was the prettiest girl in the school. I had never talked to him, but looked up to him in the way freshmen look up to seniors.

As his friends looked on and laughed, he reached under my skirt and grabbed my rear end and told me in a series of four letter words what he wanted to do to me. He did not assault me. But I was mortified and I was scared that his girlfriend would hate me. In a fit of 14-year-old awkwardness and fear, I dropped my books and sprinted to the gym.

Page 2 of 3 - The boys were laughing. Tears ran down my face as I ran and I could hear them call me “cold”. The cheerleader’s boyfriend shouted some more four-letter words as I frantically looked around to see if anyone had seen what had just unfolded.

I scurried to the girls locker room just in time to get ready for the game and somehow pulled myself together to take the van with the rest of the squad to an away game. I didn’t dare go pick up my books.

After the game, I was silent on the ride home with my dad. I went into my room and sobbed into a pillow. Even if the incident was not my fault, something had changed and I didn’t want to be a cheerleader ever again. This encounter made me feel timid in situations where I had been confident before.

My friends thought I was crazy to give up my spot on the squad, but I didn’t want to wear my uniform anymore. It’s not because I experienced ongoing bullying — because I am not sure if anyone beyond my best friend and the boys who teased me even knew the story. It’s because the lingering effects of that encounter left me feeling ashamed.

Cheerleading was no longer an honor once I felt like a target. In hindsight, I feel lucky that that nothing criminal happened and that what happened to me was small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. At the same time, whenever the news contains a story about a group of jocks messing with a girl, I immediately identify with the girl, and ache to spare her the shame she will carry going forward.

Certainly every situation is different, but when stories like the Steubenville rape case play out in the media and people say things like “She was asking for it” I am saddened. It’s true that teenage girls like to be noticed by popular older guys. But there is a definite line that gets crossed when a young woman stops being a person, and starts being prey.

For that reason, I am incredibly proud of the young woman who faced her attackers in court rather than be silenced. Yet, when the dust settles I know she will experience self doubt and deep shame over the sort of violation that is all too familiar. At the very least, she will ask herself — “Why me?”

Last time I checked, it’s not the prey’s fault when it gets eaten alive. Yes, girls need to be cognizant of their safety, but ultimately responsibility for a shameful act belongs to its perpetrator.

As parents it is our job to explain to our sons that what may seem funny in a group setting may cause deep pain for the girl who serves as punch line. It’s not cool to break a girl’s spirit for the sake of a few laughs.

Page 3 of 3 - We honor our daughters by teaching our sons to understand that shaming a girl in an act of careless cruelty doesn’t make him a man. It makes him a jerk. This knowledge is provides motivation to shift behavior. That shift means a better world for our daughters.

Over the next two months, Katherine Bennett will be focusing on the different faces of abuse within relationships in an effort to begin a dialogue about ways Hingham can work to counteract negative cultural influences.